Читать книгу The Horn Of The Hare - Günther Bach - Страница 12

6

It must have been that same day when I found the piece of amber. I was no diver, and swimming with fins tired me out quickly. But I had discovered how fascinating it could be to float in calm water with face mask and snorkel and observe the sea bottom.

You could only do this rarely on the island – either the seas were too high or the water was too cold. But that day, after the sea wind had calmed down, a warm upper layer of water had formed and it stayed warm in the calm air near the beach. Besides, after two weeks I had grown accustomed to the temperature of the water, and now paddled leisurely along behind the stone wall of undressed granite boulders which had been built to separate the beach zone from the open water and to protect it against storm surges.

The reflection of the sun’s rays was broken up by the tiny waves and flashed across the flat parallel ripples on the sandy bottom. The ground swell had washed out flat ditches behind individual stone blocks which lay in front of the wall, and they were full of the remains of black mussel shells. When I stuck my hand in among them, I raised a cloud of dark particles. Tiny transparent shrimp, as clear as glass, slid away in all directions in convulsive movement, while the suspended material gradually settled back to the bottom. The shaggy manes of a poisonously green algae which had grown on the stones washed gently back and forth in the weak ground swell.

I no longer really noticed the flat artificial taste of the snorkel, as I floated over the level sea bottom. The yelling children on the beach were muted, as I had my head under water and only the dull sound of the water in the gaps of the stones was in my ears.

I was about to shove away from one of the square blocks when I noticed the lump, almost as big as an egg, caught between the twigs of a fascine bundle. Nothing about the round piece indicated amber, and with its dull, lumpy surface it could have been a piece of flint. As I reached for it, I saw a gleam from a fracture in its surface. I sat down on a stone in the shallow water and examined my discovery. First I noticed four small barnacles adhering to the flat underside. The fracture in the surface had broken out in the shape of a shell and was not yet abraded by the sand.

When I held the piece against the sun, it shone with the color of old port wine. It was a marvelous piece; the first that I had ever found.

Those were the final days of my vacation that year. My joy in finding the amber was followed the next day by disappointment with my first lesson in archery.